old leaves too
one day they’re tree-bound and wind-rustled
and the next day they show up
down here

this transference
seems fraught with some meaning
it is beyond me
like the warmth that slips farther
away each day

I know it is gravity
that does it
but it seems
much heavier than that

*

Late in October

Playing the odds of one more warm day
The last katydid is hanging tough
While a mantis prepares for hara-kiri

Nervous chipmunks pool intelligence
They’re drawing up secret maps
And hiding them in burrows
I hear each year they forget
Where they’ve stashed them
And so must struggle like the rest of us
Blinded by frozen eyelids
Stumbling, falling
Toward utter hibernation

Squirrels are in my face
Staring right through me
Peering for nuts I may have hidden
behind my ears

I guess I’m no threat now
Compared to what’s coming
The ones who can’t take the pressure
throw themselves in front of cats

*

Fault for the Fall

You’re just being cruel
We really did all we could
To pretty things up around here

A lot of us are trying to pick up after you
But it’s a lost cause and we know it

Leaves are strewn around
With no concern for what’s getting clogged up
Don’t you know the rain needs somewhere to go?

Treeloads of berries are rotting on the ground
The sidewalks are all sticky
And it’s starting to smell
We have to live here, you know

It’s cold
Getting fat is making sense
Already, some of us are starting to give in
Those white flakes you threw in my face today
Were an insult, weren’t they?

Not only that
You threw my hat in the dirt
When I walked out the door

And this killing spree of yours
Goes on and on
I know for a fact
The doe on the highway
Was innocent